What Skyward Sword Can Do to Improve Boss Encounters

Guest Article by Joshua Lindquist

The bosses of The Legend of Zelda have changed significantly over the years. They began as very simple fights that often required nothing more than striking the boss with your sword, but the latest boss encounters are complex fights that could sometimes be considered puzzles. These newer fights are fast paced and fun, but most of them boil down to a single goal: expose the boss’s weak point and then go crazy with your sword. The new boss encounters have made the bosses a lot of fun, but they have also locked players into a single method to defeating each boss.

In between these two extremes there was a time when bosses didn’t have weak points to expose and you didn’t need your sword. There is probably no Zelda game that demonstrates this better than A Link to the Past. The game includes several bosses where you are not locked in to any particular strategy. If you don’t want to use your sword then you can use arrows, and if you run out of arrows then maybe the ice rod or fire rod will do the job.

There’s a new Zelda game on the horizon and we already know that parts of the core Zelda experience are being changed. Hopefully all of those changes are for the better, but there is one more that I want to add to the mix. The new style of boss encounters definitely have their place and I hope they never leave the series, but there needs to be more variety in the boss encounters, a lot of which I believe can be pulled from the previous titles in the series.

Give players more freedom in what weapons to use

Many of the bosses in A Link to the Past do not have weak points to expose (although some do, which offers some variety) and players are not forced to use a specific item to defeat each boss. In recent Zelda games, especially Twilight Princess, you are almost always required to use whatever item you found in a dungeon to defeat its corresponding boss.

Defeating Lanmola with the ice rod.

The bosses of other Zelda titles may be weak to whatever item you find in their dungeon, but this item isn’t the only way to defeat them. Instead of fighting in a room filled with spinner tracks, you are left in an empty room with a boss who has no obvious weak points. You are left to try out various weapons until you find one that works. This approach gets more interesting because more than one weapon often works. So, you might have killed the Lanmolas in A Link to the Past with your sword, but your best friend may have completed the same fight using the ice rod.

This approach can also make your second or third time through the game more interesting. You aren’t forced to kill the bosses the same way every time through the dungeon. It also opens the opportunity for players to challenge themselves. Did you know you can defeat those Lanmolas using arrows? The challenge is landing the shots.

Giving players a reason to try out their various weapons also leads to fun discoveries. This could be something as simple as learning that the Armos Knights can be killed faster by arrows than with your sword, or it could be something odd like learning that the bug-catching net can reflect Aganhim’s fireballs. It turns out that the Master Sword isn’t the only weapon in Hyrule capable of destroying evil.

Give players more freedom in what strategy to use

It would be easy to leave this at simply allowing players to use their variety of weapons more often, but I’m not just asking for Nintendo to let me use the Megaton Hammer instead of the sword. A Link to the Past gave us that feature nineteen years ago. Instead, I’d like to see Nintendo step it up another notch. Rather than a boss that can simply be damaged by more than one weapon, how about we get some bosses that have more than one straight-forward strategy to follow?

Ever since Ocarina of Time, the Zelda series has been locked into the idea that bosses have weak points and weak points need to be exposed. Unfortunately, there is usually only one way to expose that weak point. That means that the fight is the same every time you play it. Other games have already given us boss fights that do this. I’ll illustrate with a game that is commonly brought up in boss discussions and is one of my favorites: Shadow of the Colossus.

Shadow of the Colossus is all about boss fights. Each fight is unique and there isn’t a minute of that game that Zeldacan’t learn from. Some of the fights are very similar to recent Zelda bosses; they are straight forward puzzle-fights with one method that can be used to expose a weak point. Other fights give the player a ton of freedom even though every player will ultimately end up at the same place: a glowing weak point.

For example, in one of the early fights in Shadow of the Colossus you fight a huge golem with a stone sword. Your first goal is to climb up the sword and reach the golem’s head to stab a weak point. That portion of the fight allows for very little freedom, but after that a new weak point appears on his stomach. There are several ways to reach that second weak point. It’s always in the same place, but how it’s reached it is entirely up to the player.

Remove the glowing and visible weak points

The Zelda series needs open-ended boss fights like those in Shadow of the Colossus, but they can do even better by removing the visible glowing weak points. You don’t need a weak point to create a compelling fight and the developers of Zelda already know this. Just look at the Darknuts in Twilight Princess. These non-boss enemies are often more difficult than any of the bosses in the game and they have no gimmicks and no weak points. Furthermore, up until Ocarina of Time was released, many of the bosses didn’t have a visible weak point.

I’d like to see more boss fights that are like Darknut fights. This gives players the opportunity to explore and change the fight even more. A boss can be weaker in a certain area or weak against a certain item without making it painfully obvious.

The previously mentioned Armos Knights from A Link to the Past are an easy example of this. You can hit them anywhere and in any part of the room. You can use your sword and it will work, but if you use arrows you’ll get the job done a lot faster.

Break the “bosses are weak against the dungeon item” mold. In order for any of these changes to happen, this idea has got to go. Knowing that the boss is always weak against whatever item you found in the dungeon kills all the potential for player exploration. This isn’t something that needs to be removed entirely from the series, but it needs to be removed from some of the bosses in order to allow more player freedom.

Rely on player knowledge

After removing the obvious weak points and breaking the “boss/dungeon item” mold, the experience can be improved further by making players think a little bit. Most of us live on the real Earth and spend at least a little bit of time actually living outside of The Legend of Zelda, and the real world is full of valuable knowledge that we learn as we live. The games should tap into that knowledge to improve boss encounters rather than always holding our hand through the fights.

Here are some easy examples: Can anyone tell me what happens to grass when you light it on fire? What happens if you pour water on a pile of dirt or send an electric current through a puddle of water?

Grass burns, water turns to mud, and the water is going to shock everything in it. So the next time you’re fighting Kalle Demos, should you going to shoot fire arrows at it? Of course not, everyone knows that giant plant monsters are weak against the boomerang.

The Legend of Zelda needs to pull from the real world more. This gives players the opportunity to use what they already know to defeat bosses rather than relying only on knowledge they learned in the past hour while playing the game.

Looking Skyward

Yesterday, we were introduced to The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. The demo at E3 included one boss, but unfortunately that boss doesn’t appear to take into account what I’ve written in this article. There are a couple of obvious weak points and the boss appears to be a very straight forward fight.

Hopefully, during the next six months, the developers will incorporate some additional play styles (like those mentioned previously) into some of the fights. I’m hoping to see a variety of bosses in this game, and even if the scorpion boss shown at E3 is a straightforward fight, there is still an opportunity for other fights to allow more player freedom.

Actually, the first time I fought that sucka, I didn't understand what I was supposed to do, so I sat there and shot fire arrows into him every time he rolled past.

Scorpionz

all bosses in MM gave you the freedom to kill them in multiple ways,the second one had the less lol.

Thareous33

I have to agree with Joshua. Boss fights are oversimple in this franchise. I was never truly challenged until I faced the bosses of TP, surprisingly enough to some, or most. Well, except for Diababa, but that's just because he was the first in the game. Anywho, previous Zelda titles weren't so hard as TP because, from what I believe, Nintendo learned in each game that they had to improve. And they did. I just hope that Skyward Sword takes boss fights to the max, makes them a bit more taxing, and shows us a helluva ride as they used to.

SweetLie

I found Twilight Princess' bosses to be too easy. They were just way too obvious for me. The only challenging part in Twilight Princess was the last level of the labyrinth, where you had to fight 3 darknuts at once.

Carly

agreed, 3 darknuts was more challenging than ganon (not discrediting ganon at all, loved each faze of battle, esspecially the last two) but most of the bosses had an eye to hit, the plant, the crazed goron, the slug, the spider..

Anyway, It's obvious Nintendo does this so that a wider range of people can enjoy the game as a whole and not become overly frustrated when unable to defeat a boss.

I'd think it a better idea to, yeah, have the first bosses a cakewalk, then the later bosses increase in hardness. Your "fairy guide", or whatever, Link's Sword, in this case, could pipe in with more and more hints and strategies if you're the kind of person, having too much trouble.

Ah, but…if only.

D é r k o m a i

oops, I meant you, SweetLie–but that mistake should be obvious, heh.

jc4d

It´s true, the onlychallenge for me was the labyrinth, and what about ganon (sorry if I hurt some feelings) but it was lame on TP, in OoT it was challenging somehow but that´s it.
Another thing that I realize watching the gameplay hands on, there was a guy was figthing with a skeleton and there was huge the amount of hearts to recover… come on that is stupid (sorry), just carry your potion and if that thing kill you… to bad so sad, try again until you can defeat it, give the chance to players to study the boss and the movements and then fight for real, don´t make a heart rain in order to keep you alive all the fight.
You have no idea how much I would like that all the comments here could reach Nintendo dev team in order to listen the fan base.

TriforceofCourage

Honestly, I felt that there was absolutely no challenge in TP whatsoever. I never game-overed, I rarely got hit. Everything was way too obvious. I enjoyed playing the game, but it would have been better if there was some challenging aspects to the game.

jc4d

I agree with you here, I'm so tired to see how the new "modern" games are so easy, giving hints where to go or where to hit, I own PS3 as well and in every single game you press a button and there you go your road marked… come on please, go back to the old school where you could spend two days figuring out how to reach the next place or stage or even try to find that special weapon to beat the monster easier.
I remember back to OoT when I get finally to gerudo's valley for first time, a friend of mine and I spent 3 days (around 4 hours gameplay each day) trying to find the last kidnapped guy, and not even one single hint of where he could be, and I can say that I loved that and I miss that non hint "religion" in the today games.
With this I mean for boss fights and everything, sometimes is not only making difficulties levels, because at the end the core of the game is the same just with few more bosses and more HP… please make it harder from the heart not from the surface.

http://intensedebate.com/people/triforceguy1 triforceguy1

I miss that too

Tsubasa_Zero

Ye me too. i remember goof troops last puzzel. It still takles me 4 hours to solve it.XD Or pockey and rockey i still hard

CHACHA

OMG! Yeah that puzzle was awesome! My entire family tried to solve it, took us a whole day to find out haha XD

EJade

What about the first Boss in WindWaker? I actually was confused at first on how to fight it. Some of the bosses in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks aren't so straightforward either.

Tsubasa_Zero

Come on…you didn't see the trailer? or the obvious tail to grab on to. You knew you had to 'grab something' at the least

Tim

Actually, when I played WW, I never saw the trailers, and was confused about how to beat the boss. I had a dream where I was Link and I used the grappling hook to reach the platforms. When I used it, I saw the tail and then it was easy. IThat's the kind of confusing and experimentation that needs to be in more boss fights. The bosses need to be BOSS!!

Tim

Oh, sorry 'bout that. My grammar seems off today. I meant confusion. And I don't know where that I came from before ''That's''

dark tri-force

no kidding. i spent three days trying to figure it out

Alkunkunka

I think there is a variety in all Zelda games. like, take OoT for example: The first two are quite easy, however, the electrical third one (Don't know their names) was rather hard and, despite it have a visible weak point, I, at least, had to struggle quite a bit.

Dark Link

same here XD, and name goes something like "Parasitic armored arachnid gohma" "Infernal Dinosaur King Dodongo" and "Bio-electrical anemonae Barinade"

ZoraMikau

the boss shown is most likely the first boss, what do you expect? They aren't going to let you kill that boss with arrows if you don't have them by then in the real game. They'll probably open up more with later bosses, when you have more items, hopefully.

franklin

I coold think that,but it seems that if this guy isnt in this aria in the demo he coold be the desert gardien or just a feald boss later becas he herts two harts,and you star whith three I dout he coold be the first boss.so moste likeley desert feald

ridra

a quote from yoshiyuki oyama from nintendo power feb/06 "Something we consider in zelda boss design is that the item that you find in a particular dungeon stage is often the key for defeatingits boss. to a certain degree, twilight princess is follow ing that classic idea. After all, we'd like to create a situation in which players try to use items, especially if they're hard to find. ultimately, fantasy adventures usually dont require more than a sword shield bow and occasionally bombs. but zelda offers more item diversity, and thats what's made the series uniquely alluring for players. so we really try to incorporate item-minded ideas into the final boss designs." but as for the part about the weak point being deathly obvious, i agree with you.

Dérkomai

You know, you can pretty much set everything on fire? Grass (and furless animals) I'd think would be one of the harder things to burn, as we've got a lot of water in us, yeah? But I see what you mean…

D é r k o m a i

Ah, yeah. ALttP just seemed sort of random with it's bosses, and how to defeat them. The bosses from OoT tended to have a reason for being where they were, as well as the item having the purpose of defeating them. We like purpose, but as you say the SAME OLD THING becomes THE SAME OLD THING. I suppose we want more variety in how a boss battle goes, but we still appreciate if a logic went into it somehow.

Tsubasa_Zero

There were some bosses that could be killed in mroe ways than one.
MM: bull : i shot it from in the doorway
WW: the ghost boss: You need to throw it, but then it's a killing fest
TP: Spider round 2: teh spiders carry the eye. Kill it like you want

But i agree with your point. No obvious weak point or no weak point at all. And more ways to kill it. (like megaman)

Luke

I'm not trying to be an obnoxious guy and start a flame war, but I have to disagree with you.
I'll agree that sometimes newer Zelda bosses are more obvious than past ones, and sometimes the overly obvious ones are boring, but I don't think it's fun to have absolutely no guidance. If you have multiple ways to defeat a boss, like you said, defeating the Lanmolas with say, the Ice Rod or the Bow instead of the sword, how would anyone think of that? Even if there are multiple ways to defeat a boss, once someone discovers that one weapon works against them, they're not going to decide to go through their entire arsenal and figure out what else works again, they will just stick with the way that they know works.
Also, if the way to kill the boss is too difficult to figure out, you'll just die and have to go through the dungeon to get to the boss's room again, and that is extremely annoying.
Also also, I like the concept of using the dungeon's item against the boss. It might make the boss fight easy to figure out, but it just seems right to use what you find in the boss's dungeon against it. It would seem pointless to get the Megaton Hammer and then go fight Volvagia and use the Hookshot.

Hunter A.

i agree with you when you say that the bosses sometimes get more obvious the farther you go in the game, but sometimes thats what you need. When you get to the end of a difficult dungeon that took far to long, I personally would rather have an easy simple boss than one that would take longer to beat than the dungeon itself did. I'm only 15 and i have played (almost) every zelda game to date and i can vouch that the bosses get simpler as you play more of the games. I also agree about the dungeon item against the boss it does seem pointless to go through your item list to find what will work if you know that using one item will ensure you dont die any quicker because your standing there trying to hit the little eye looking weak point with the bow when you could just shove your sword against it and get an effective (and sometimes entertaining) response.

bbb

I say we should go with LA or MM instead of a link to the past: A range in strategies but not unlimited freedom, every item must be used in a boss but not necessarily the dungeon boss, and you do not need you hand held.

zELDA faN #1

This game art look like the middle step between WW and TP. Like an improved WW and a worsen TP…oh well, lets rely on story and pace

Nathaniel

I think it could be cool if they had bosses or mini bosses outside of dungeons aswell. Like have that scorpion thing wandering around hyrule or a bunch of them. Most of the enemies usually in hyrule are just fodder for your blade which gets kind of boring. I liked it in MM when you faced mini king dodongos that took multiple hits to kill.
I'd also like for them to make the bosses hit more frequently or harder because to be honest after almost all TP boss battles I had only lost a few hearts or none at all. If 20 hearts is the max by the end of the game I want to put them to use.

Puck

Minibosses in other places sounds good, especially in dungeons that don't have a vital objective like TP's Lantern Caves or the Cave of Ordeals. I found the twilibeasts placement awesome because it broke the monotony of the basic beasts.
I also agree about the bosses: I rarely needed the fairies I unlocked because it was expected of me to use the item so start there. I will say the Stallord was difficult because we barely got to test the spinner first, and the camera angle made Blizzeta tough.
However, I thought they cheated us in TP at times. The Lakebed boss was a nearly identical copy of Morpha from OOT, with water bombs thrown in for a Barinade reference. The entire Snowpeak portion was highly reminiscent of Snowhead from MM plus some snowboarding which was cool. Armogohama was by far the biggest cheap shot though: it was simply Queen Gohama with an Armos beam (hence Armogohama) and just because you have to use the item there were statues for you to move. EPIC FAIL!

GorCoronSumo

Armos beam? Armos don't have beams, BEAMOS do.

Tim

@zELDA faN #1
How is it "worse" than TP? Just because TP is more realistic does not mean that it's better. I like the art style of SS better than TP. It reminds me of ALttP in 3D.

Anyway, I totally agree. I feel as if more recent bosses are trying to say "HEY LISTEN!!! I HAVE A WEAK POINT HERE. HIT IT FOR MASSIVE DAMAGE." It's almost too easy. I like how in ALttP you had to use the dungeon weapon to fight the boss, it wasn't the only thing you had to use. You also could use several other weapons in conjunction with the main deugeon weapon. It provided for a learning curve for every boss. I like that style of fights. Even if it takes me a long time to figure it out. That is old school zelda. I can figure most (I say most, not all) of more recent Zelda bosses out pretty quickly. I have died so many times in ALttP (I'm still playing it, never completed it on the SNES cause I never had one. I have the GBA version), and I love that it takes me so long to beat the bosses. Like I said earlier: The bosses need to be BOSS!!

Epic Hardcore Zelda god

Okay, how bout instead of using different methods to kill boss, the boss has a larger battle pattern that can actually be randomized for your save file, say for example, that scorpion thing the first time you play could have a battle pattern that is not so easy to follow but you kill it. Now you beat the game and start a new save, that scorpion boss has a new harder to follow battle pattern that is totally differnt than the one before changing the game experience for you and giving you a mental workout. THIS WOULD APPLY TO ALL BOSSES BREAKING THE BORING CYCLE YOU GUYS HATE. Frankly, I don’t care bout bosses cause Zelda is still and always will be #1.

IronKnuckle

I miss that too. In the fight against Ganon in The Legend of Zelda, that was great. There's no hints, and I was just stabbing my sword like crazy and when I finally hit him, I knew what to do. No stupid rinse and repeat bosses like the ones in TP.

NonaSuomi

I think that at this point we have a nice spread of boss styles across the series, ranging from the mundane hack-and-slash situations like the Dragon in LoZ to intense, open-ended situations like the Armos Army, to the formulaic fights from the more recent 3d games. I'd actually like to see a mix of these different fights in Skyward Sword. Give us a few bosses that you just have to tank through by doing plain-and-simple damage, a few where we have a plethora of options to hit a vulnerability, and a few where we get to use the flashy new weapon we just spent an hour and a half crawling through a dungeon for.

With the promise of a completely seamless and unnoticeable transition between overworld and dungeon, I would really love to find that you might occasionally wander across a "monster house" of sorts in the open field. Imagine hiking across Hyrule field when suddenly the ground begins to shake and then, from out of nowhere, you run into a platoon of Darknuts just roaming the countryside, or a pair of fully-grown Gohma just burrow up out of the ground, hoping to trap you into being their next meal. I'd love to see more variation in boss fights, but what I'm more interested in is the overworld being more than just vast expanses of scenery filled with annoying cannon fodder. An old man once told me "It's dangerous to go alone!" and I would love to have him proven right. Hyrule is supposedly run by an evil people in SS, so would assume there's very little guarantee that the land is kept safe for travelers; make the trek from Hyrule Castle to Death Mountain more than mundane travel: make us fight for every yard, and make it a fight we won't forget!

Ally

When I was fighting Odolwa in MM, all i really did was whack him a few times anywhere and he went X X
___ .

Ally

When I was fighting Odolwa in MM, all i really did was whack him a few times anywhere and he went Bye bye.

Zarco

I think utilizing the dungeon item is good. I loved the Stallord boss fight in TP. The spinner is the coolest and least utilized item in the game and I treasured every minute of using it.

That said, you don't ONLY have to use the dungeon item. Creative use of items is key rather than using different weapons to beat down a boss. Imagine a giant knight like a Darknut who beats you down with its sword. It has some kind of poe-soul "core" under his armor. You can roll around the back and try and shoot or stab the core, but this is costly. Using a ball and chain/hammer to knock off its armor requires getting up close and personal, but after a few hits the enemy is totally exposed. It could even be a recurring enemy- the first time gives you the hammer and then its an easier fight for the rest of the game.

Anyone remember the baboon miniboss from the Forest Temple of TP? I would've liked an opportunity to use the slingshot to kill it slowly, although aiming would've been hard, it would've been an alternative.

Another thing I love is a multiple-stage boss like the final boss gauntlet at the end of any good game. TP had that, and while its bosses were easy and predictable, they were impressive, gigantic, and fun.

Blu_o07

For those of you who have heard about the OoT remake for nintendo 3DS, do you think they will make a MM remake too?
My first guess would be no, but then I hated the thought that the OoT remake would not have MM remake when the original games were so fun.
I also want Dark Link to be a main antagonist in SS.

mario_master

for the OOT remake if they also make a MM remake there might be a small chance that there would be a suprise third game of the hero of time story line for either the wii or 3ds having the remakes prepare you for the new one

FourSwords

My first game was Wind Waker, and I jumped around until I finally downloaded the original Legend of Zelda onto my Wii. What a shock. For the first twenty minutes I ran around like a chicken with it's head cut off! I think Twilight Princess had the absolute worst bosses in Zelda history. Sure, the graphics were good and made the bosses visually stunning, however I never saw how the could look so powerful, but always be beaten first time. And fighting Ganondorf made me flash back to Wind Waker's Darknuts. Nintendo has made the series progressively easier. When I played OoT, again on my Wii, I had nostagic feelings from Wind Waker's Phantom Ganon, as well as FSA Ganon, although OoT's Ganon tennis match was much harder. Nintendo, I'm not six anymore. I've seen all of your tricks. I can't be fooled anymore.

Zelda master goku 5

you should add a lot of stuff like a huge darknut boss in a huge area like mm 2 boss huge area and next you should make the weak points for the darknut boss if you add it so small almost impossable to kill and last add some more monsters like a Kio ken gaurdian is a gaurdian that has a head made of fire body of water feet of rock and the power to control win if you want to add it you can switch the element parts

Zelda master goku 5

I am the #1 zelda fan ever I WANT EVERY GAME

dark tri-force

i have everry game

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tmao

I agree because haveing to get a sertant item in a dungeon kinda gives away the secret.When ever i fight the 3rd boss in TP i automaticly know i have to use the clawshot i even knew that on the first try.I want more options so if my brother needs help i can tell him the best way to fight it.

tmao

an example would be that i could throw a bomb in its mouth to kill it like a dodongo .

I miss the flexibility of the OOT Shadow Link fight. You had a few things at your disposal he didn't have like bombs, Din's Fire, or arrows. That I think is one of the most challenging fights of the series besides three heart first dungeons. Zant started feeling like MM's Wizrobe (highly repetitive and HIGHLY annoying), with Gerundo thieves/pirates blades at the end.

TriAuz64

I think a boss fight isn’t a boss fight unless you die two or three times before beating it. but not like the white cloaked boss in alttp, THAT THING WAS SO ANNOYING! I ALMOST GAVE UP ON THAT GAME BECAUSE OF IT!!! also, the whole “Temple item=Temple boss’s weakness” thing has got to go. I got the first temple item in TP and I said “well, I know how I’m going to beat the boss now.”

P.S. HURRY UP NINTENDO! I WANT THAT GAME!!!

Mr. Purple

I completely Agree. Nintendo should stop making painfully easy weakpoints asswell as add more variety to the battles. The basic Boss being weak to the certain Item is nice and all but make it much more like MM Every boss (excluding Gyorg) had variety in how you killed it. Expessialy Goht, Roll around like a dumbass,Arrows, Fierce Deity, (long process) sword, & bombs. theres probobly more and If its remade they should incorporate even more ways.

If LOZ URA is brought back ( wich was a failed N64 disk drive expansion for OOT) and remade It aswell should incorporate several ways to defeat bosses

Robert

I personally played Twilight Princess like 14 times (I wish I was exaggerating but that's a pretty close guess, and this is over the course of a couple of years). I had fun with the boss fights but I will admit that I eventually got it down to a science and I could do most of the harder fights without taking a single hit. The rest of the game was fun but the boss fights got dull. I like how theyre reinventing the controls, that's gonna be awesome, but I think it'll be wasted if it's on the kind of fights in TP. More variety would be nice to see.

GorCoronSumo

Of course they got dull if you played the game 14 times! They don't change!

Darknut killa

I think the style of fights is great but mabye they should put difficulty settings that dont make the Bosses take longer to kill but aculy make them have a new battle pattern. Also i think you should use the weapon you find in the dungeon against the boss because you know that your getting a new weapon when you walk into the dungeon and you spend like 30 mins getting it then what the weapon does is always different for example like: TP when you get a rod the controls statues and you smash up a huge spider with it its always awsome to use your new cool weapon against the boss of that dungeon

cbarnett2386

I agree with you! I could see giving the boss different attack patterns, mixing up so you don't know exactly what to expect! Using the new weapon is just a giving, I want to use that item as much as possible! I remember getting the hookshot in Ocarina of Time for the first time and I had a blast with it!!

GorCoronSumo

Sorry about this, but you CAN'T use fire arrows against Kalle Demos, you don't have the bow yet!

GorCoronSumo

Also, I think that bosses that are weak to dungeon items are a nice finale for items that are never used anytime else. An example of this would be Armoghoma from TP. Anyway, we still have minibosses…

Rollo

I know this is an old thread but I thought it was worth mentioning, I have been recently playing Oracle of Ages and LttP. OoA incorporated some nice difficult puzzle bosses, like the lvl 5 dungeon block puzzle boss. The lvl 8 dungeon boss was awesome in the fact that it had 3 stages, of which only one required the dungeon item, and the Veran is…HARD…! Then i started playing LttP, it is easy to forget how difficult old school games were, even the intro is plain BRUTAL. And I like it!

K zee

For the one strategy boss fights, I agree to more strategy, but I don't want to miss anything. So what if you have to find out each new strategy, to defeat the boss at it's different stages? Climbing onto its shoulders for one part, then hookshoting the shield at another. You only had to do each way once, but you had to do them at least once. You could even have little hints as to what the strategies would be, (if they used an item, it there would be a picture of it on the wall, but you had to find out when to use it, or the Navi of the game could give you a clue if you asked) or you are only told of 'x' amounts of strategies, and you have to find them all, and then you could switch it up after you find them and use different items during each strategy.

When it comes to the “bosses are weak against the dungeon item” mold, I know it's tedious, but I want there to be a reason why I got the item to begin with. Not just using it to help me get to the boss, but I want it to play some part in the boss strategy, maybe it moves me around the room, maybe it lays the final strike, of course, the usage of the item would change from dungeon to dungeon, I just want it to have some role.

What if there are a boss battle, only one per game, where the dungeon item was the only one you could use, and you have to find out each of the many ways to use it on the boss. There would be like 6-10 different functions, or more if reasonably possible (we could keep track by an in-game list) and you'd have found 4 ways to use it along the dungeon, but you have to find 4 more ways to use it in the boss-fight.

And to balance it out, there could be a boss fight, where you have to use every item but the dungeon item. I know I said I want there to be a reason for the dungeon item, but if you have 1 boss-fight with only the dungeon item, and 1 boss-fight with everything the dungeon item, I think it would balance out.

Lastly, when it comes to open-ended boss-fights, if the bosses can have more than one final strike, or cut-scene, then I want to be able to fight bosses again, without having to restart the game. If anyone remembers Wind Waker, you could fight bosses again and again at the last dungeon, but instead, why not be able to go back to their dungeon, and have the boss waiting for you.

killing the boss

K zee

For the one strategy boss fights, I agree to more strategy, but I don't want to miss anything. So what if you have to find out each new strategy, to defeat the boss at it's different stages? Climbing onto its shoulders for one part, then hookshoting the shield at another. You only had to do each way once, but you had to do them at least once. You could even have little hints as to what the strategies would be, (if they used an item, it there would be a picture of it on the wall, but you had to find out when to use it, or the Navi of the game could give you a clue if you asked) or you are only told of 'x' amounts of strategies, and you have to find them all, and then you could switch it up after you find them and use different items during each strategy.

Kyle

I would love to see more *science* laws used with the items acquired like this for example:

A bad *Body Snatchers* plant creature standing in a pool of *skeleton fish infested sewer water* which then you can find a way to send an electrical current stunning the plant creature: once stunned that will be allowing you multiple hits on the monster where the obvious way is to use the *Insert Special Dungeon Arrow you will ONLY use once here* but that way will be WAY more tedious then using the electrical current idea. Your choice though since you have both options.

The science/chemical part would prove that while Zelda has magic: The world is also stable enough with it's own cause and effect law. as a bonus this may even get kids to study science on their own instead of mindlessly slashing their swords.

Kyle

If Nintendo doesn't do some major changes like above or something even better I will send the Sony police after them to steal everything they've got! :p

brian torres

If Ganondorf was on the dame He would look 10 time better then his original tunic

TriforceGod55

I have to totally agree. Completely. Especially about new games being so easy as they practically tell you how to beat it.

TopherLee

I think the mega man series is a PERFECT example of what he’s talking about, specifically the “fire burns plants, electricity bad for something in water” part. Zelda would have great boss fights if it followed a similar pattern.

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